023 Book Rancher Transcript (Larry McMurtry)

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Amit: This is famous and gravy, a podcast about quality of life. As we see it, one dead celebrity at a.

Michael: This person died in 2021 age 84. He was friends with Ken Kesey and made a memorable cameo appearance in Tom Wolf's classic book. The electric Kool-Aid acid test.

Friend: Yeah, I got nothing so far.

Michael: Okay.

Friend: I don't know who any of these people are. Not easy.

Michael: He had a private library that held some 30,000 books and was spread over three houses.

Friend: Hunter S . Thompson.

Michael: Ah, good guess not hunter S Thompson. His son is a well regarded singer and songwriter.

Friend: I don't feel like it take Williams that wouldn't be congruent with the library.

Michael: That's a really good guess though. That's a really good guess. Multi-generational tone. He wrote more than 30 screenplays, including the one for broke back mountain.

Friend: I mean, now I'm just. I'm just gonna lie and give, I'm gonna give you a fake name as to who I am so that not has to know. I dunno who oh, oh, oh. Um, I can picture him. Maybe. I don't know. Your, your clues are so tricky.

Michael: He found his greatest commercial and critical success with lonesome dove, a sweeping 843 page novel. That was turned into a mini series

Friend: that is MC thinking. Larry today is that celebrity is Larry MC.

Archival: You told the New York times in 2007, I'm bored to death with the 19th century west. I'm never gonna write another novel about the old. Well, that was just a tactic people think you're gonna write endless books about the old west. They aren't gonna be too happy, but if there's some sub views involved, um, you can, you can proceed with your life. You know, I have to turn a living after all and their time comes a time and riding another Western is the quickest way.

Michael: welcome to famous and great. I'm Michael Osborne.

Amit: My name is Amit Kapoor.

Michael: And on this. We go through a series of categories about multiple aspects of a famous person's life. We want to figure out the things in life that we would actually desire. We ultimately are here to answer a big question. Would I want that life today?

Larry McMurtry died 2021 age 84 category one grading the first line of their obituary. Larry McMurry, a prolific novelist and screenwriter who demo mythologized the American west with his unromantic depictions of life on the 19th century frontier. And in contemporary small town, Texas died on Thursday at his home in Archer city, Texas.

He was 84. It's very complimentary. All right. The word that caught my attention here is demo mythologized demo

mythologized, the

American west demo, mythologized, the American west and contemporary small town, Texas. That's

Amit: like the opposite of like a tribesman who is the leader of the group and tells old stories.

Yeah. He's

Michael: just one there to, I'm here to tell them I'm here to tell you all the stories you learned are bullshit. Yeah. I actually thought that was a little bit of an unusual thing to lead. I think that that was his ambition, but he even sort of himself speaks to, yeah. I tried to de mythologize the American west and in, so doing, I still.

All but re mythologized, especially the cowboy, which he sort of had a lot to say about it being a sort of unassailable American icon and right. No matter how much de mythologizing he's trying to do, we can't be successful with it. Oh, I think

Amit: he's emasculating the cowboy. Ah, okay. I think that's what he's doing.

Cuz

Michael: he's showing this, you did the heteronormative, you know, hyper individualistic,

Amit: correct? Yeah. I mean mode and dove is, is all about character flaws and vulnerability. Yes. Uh, and I think that's

Michael: what they're referring to well and broke back mountain is about gay Cowboys. Correct? I see that. I guess.

There's de mythologizing, but I, it made, I don't know, there's humanizing is de mythologizing the same thing as humanizing, I think in this

Amit: context it is. Yeah. Okay. Because we don't, I don't think we humanize the old west. Yeah, yeah. Or even the modern west and the modern cowboy. Yeah.

Michael: So, okay.

Amit: So demo mythologized and UN romanticized.

Kind of giving

Michael: him this unromantic depiction. Yeah. I'm just not convinced he succeeded in that.

Amit: No, I think that was his intention. And that's what literary critics see. Yeah. But I don't think actual pastor by fans of lonesome dove and last picture show and broke back mountain necessarily walked

Michael: away with that.

Yeah, I agree. So is it missing anything? Are there omissions in this first. His

Amit: relationship with books, the, which we're gonna get into a lot. Yeah. The Antiqua thing. I mean, that was so much of his life remaking this city. Yeah. Um, I would've liked a nod

Michael: to it. I actually do kind of agree though, that. Like he cared more about book collecting than book writing or screenwriting.

It still misses a, a thing that he cared a lot about, but it's not what we knew him for. So to the extent that the first line of the obituary is a news lead, then I do think that this one's very good, but I also think that he himself would've quibbled with it and said, you didn't mention my book collector.

Yeah. He

Amit: was a writer. Yeah. Above all else. And he would've maybe rather you said a writer and book collector. But you can't have both

Michael: and he's known for his writing. All right. Yes. Well, so, uh, what's your score? Eight. Okay. I'm gonna go one higher. I'm gonna go nine. Ooh. Yeah. Nice. I think it's really great.

The other thing that we haven't really drawn attention to Texas has mentioned twice. I think that's important and maybe the first thing I wanna lead off with. Okay. All right. Next category. Yep. Category two, five things. I love about you here. Amit and I work together to try and come up with five reasons why we love this person, why we should be talking about them.

What's interesting and important about their

Amit: you're very excited about this. I am seriously excited coming

Michael: out. I really thought about my five things. So you must lead, then I'll lead off with what I was teasing a second ago, definitively definingly Texan in the best possible ways I say in the best possible ways.

That's actually not an easy tag on to definitively Texan. I have been trying to, and their lead up to this conversation have conversations with friends, with who are the best Texans. I don't love the list I've been coming up with because it's got a major male bias and a major white bias, and I don't know what to do about that.

And I'm sure there's some omissions here. There's some easy ones that kind of come to mind. Willie Nelson, obviously Waylon Jennings for me. Uh, My wife offered Matthew McConaughy with some reservation, but I actually think that's a great one. That

Amit: is a great one. Yeah. I mean, he's in the middle of his

Michael: life, but yeah, that is a great one.

Yes, but he is, he is like thoroughly Texan and sort of known for his Texan ness. Ann Richards, I think is not a bad nominee. Yeah. Uh, or former governor, uh, Molly IVANS also is right up there, you know, journalist great one. They

Amit: just did a biography about her in the last year or two, really a documentary.

Michael: No shit.

Oh, wow. I need to, I'd like to see that, but the last one I wanna offer up here is sort of important and that's Robert Earl keen. And the reason I think that he needs to be mentioned in the same breath as Larry McMurtry, is that they both seem to have. Outsized and amplified fame and notoriety within the borders of the state, the fanaticism around Robert Earl king Jr.

And Larry McMurtrie goes up two notches, as soon as you cross the border into the state of

Amit: Texas and you go the other way to Louisiana just stops. Yeah.

Michael: I mean, it doesn't only cliff, right? I mean, that's Robert Earl has always been kind of like everybody in the state knows and loves him, but he is like definitively and definingly Tex.

But what do you think about this as, as the thing I love about you for McMurtrie? I mean, I, I feel passionately about it, but I wonder if I'm,

Amit: I think it's accurate, but it's so interesting because it's about his art more than it's about him. I'm not sure that he wants to be the hero of Texas or be the most definitive Texan of all time as you insinuated as possible.

Michael: Yeah. I agree with that, but like it or not, he is that to

Amit: me. Yeah. This segues perfectly to my number two. All right. It's that? He is a boomerang Texan, boomerang Texan, a boomerang Texan. So don't know this term. It's popular now with a boomerang child, right. A child goes away to college and may go away for a few years, then comes back and lives with mom and dad.

I see. Yes. Um, Larry McMurray did not love Texas his whole life and I'm not even sure he loved it up until the year he died.

Michael: What is it about Archer city that so attracts you, uh, Archer city doesn't really, exactly attract me.

It's just my

Amit: it's it's just my home. Yeah. And he has bad things to say about Dallas. He has bad things to say about Austin. Yeah. So when he went and lived in DC, which is, I think the late sixties, he was interviewed about why he's not in Texas. And he said, I got tired of dealing creatively with the kind of mental and emotive inarticulateness that I found in Texas.

uh, he faulted fair, fair. He faulted the state for its excess of olds mobiles. And then it goes on to say, McMurtry is a yuppy and east coast snob. A youthful marriage had left McMurtrie seared with the sun and diapers to raise, and much of that pain was absorbed in Austin. He took a swipe at that dismal town in its endless production of third rate books, music in pictures.

I don't believe Austin can claim a single first rate artistic. Talent in any art McMurray said in the late sixties. So he actually, the more he got away from Texas, the more he despised it. Yeah. And it took a while for him to come to grips with, well, Texas is actually, what's kind of making my career and making my identity, but in fact, it's, what's coming through in my art.

And so it took him several decades to come to grips with the fact that he was actually. Texan. Yeah. So I guess what I'm saying is the thing I love about him is he had to leave to love it. Yeah. And I think that's a great life lesson for experiencing traveling and wandering. I relate to that too. Yeah. So you have a lot of people that say I was born here.

I was raised here. I live here and I'm gonna die here. There's something missing in that. Yeah. Right. And that is that outside exposure that can make. Come back and love it more. Yeah. And here we are two people that kind of follow the same paths. Yeah. That left Texas in our twenties and came back in our late

Michael: thirties.

All right. I love it. Shall I do my number three? Yes. All right. This is one of those catchall. This is a sort of Alma Kippur kind of thing. I love, I wrote signs and coincidences. So you're gonna have to, well, I've intrigued. You're gonna have to bear with me. So I read like fucking four memoirs of his and rewatched lonesome dove in the lead up to this.

I can't think of a famous and gravy dead celebrity, who I have more like obsessed about in the research. All right. Science and coincidences. This was my way of telling three stories that I fucking love. All right. Story. Number one, the water tower. So in 19 62, 63, he has sold his first book horseman passed by.

That's gonna be adapted into the movie, HUD starring Paul Newman, and he goes and visits his first film set, uh, and doesn't have a great experience there. And he sort of weirded out by it. The film is being shot in a town called Claude, Texas. That's kind of like Archer city. On his way out of town, he looks up at the water tower that usually says Claude.

And instead it says Thalia T a cause they I've painted it for the movie cuz they've painted it for the movie. He has totally made up the name of this town. It doesn't exist, but he sees it on this water tower and he says, It's thrilling. so that's sign number one. Okay. Sign number two. Let's see, this is in, uh, around, I wanna say 19 84, 85.

He's in a small south Texas town. Uh, it's the mid eighties, his career has really done fairly well at this point. LOEs and doves come out and terms of endearment has also been adapted from his book into a screenplay movie, starring Shirley McLean, Jack Nicholson won the best picture, right. He gets a phone call from his agent while he is in this town, telling him that lonesome dove has won the Pulitzer prize.

And on his way into this town, he sees a sign on the marquee of the holiday Inn that says welcome Larry McMurray author of terms of endearment. But as he's a few hours later walking to the actual precedent, he looks up and sees that the sign has been changed. It now reads. Lunch special catfish 3 95 . And he said after the press event, as the locals were flocking in, I did the same.

He's a big fan of catfish. So he sort of is noting that as he's reaching this peak, like all things pass and before the press event was even done, his big welcoming sign has been changed to a catfish special third story. This is at about 2006 it's awards season in Hollywood. This is before the Oscars and he describes this moment as being better than the Oscars.

He's coming home from some awards show and he's fallen asleep in the back of a limousine. He wakes up as the limo is driving on Santa Monica Boulevard and it happens to be passing by the Troubador, which is a legendary rock venue. And he opens his eyes just in time to see the marquee, which read James Smith.

Marrie. His son who has either just played or is about to, he had no idea who was in town. And he says in one of his memoirs quote, this was an excellent thing for a father to see out of one eye in a limo in LA, in the middle of the night. All right. So not only do I love all those stories, I want to talk about coincidences and signs for just a minute.

Okay. I'm gonna call this a spiritual endeavor. I don't believe in coincidences. I like to entertain the idea that there might be some higher power out there who wants to communicate with me and. I don't know if that higher power actually exists or not, and I'm not sure finding that higher power even fucking matters, but I do think it is a healthy thing for an individual to be looking that seeking a higher power of your understanding is just as important.

In fact, probably more important than finding one. So the idea that these signs may be the universe talking back to Larry McMurry is something I love. Yeah,

Amit: because the universe could be communicating through a holiday end sign. Exactly. Did you enjoy those stories? I did very much. I'm gonna come back to a couple of those in some of my points later.

All right. I like those. And we may have catfish for lunch after the recording.

Michael: Beautiful. All right. Thing, you love number four. It's

Amit: yours, Cowboys and hippies. So, uh, do you know, I took this from a David Allen cos song. We're

Michael: bikers, star Cowboys, who are laughing at the hippies who are praying. They'll get outta here alive.

Amit: Loud, Larry McMurtrie cowboy and hippie. The embodiment of that comes from 1961 with the Stanford fellowship, where he met Ken Kei Fren, meet him for a very long period with a fascinating culmination, Ken Kei, best known for writing one flu over the Cuckoo's nest originally. But the later fame came as he was a major.

In the sixties, countercultural movement specifically in L S D. Yeah. And the electric Coate acid test, which was referred to in the quiz mm-hmm , which was Casey's cross country road trip that he led with the Mary pranksters, essentially setting up. Acid tests. Yes. All throughout the country. So they'd go, they'd set up what would be the equivalent of a music festival and give acid to a bunch of people and see how they

Michael: experienced it.

Yeah. Often with the grateful dead, sometimes the Stewart brand. Have you ever read that

Amit: book? I have. I read it in college for a class. It's just a fascinating tale of the sixties of both the start and the end. Of the sixties. Amen. Yeah. But in 1967, when this bus is going around there doing their acid test in Houston, at rice university, where I believe McMurtry was actually teaching at the time, I think that's right.

Ken. Casey's like, oh, well I'll just stay at McMurray's house. Yeah. So the most outlandish dozens of hippies in this bus come and stay at McMurry house for a few days in preparation for the

Michael: acid test. Do you know the story about when they rolled. Somebody dances off the bus, tripping

Amit: and naked. Yeah. The woman's name in the book

Michael: was stark, naked, stark, naked, and then some awkward exchange where Larry McMurray is saying ma'am, ma'am like trying to like calm her down in , which is the perfect

Amit: Cowboys in hippies.

is the way this acid test in Houston ends is the greatest Cowboys in hippies MC mercury story. I. Ever come up with, so at the end of the acid test, as Kei wrote, or at least one of the other people on the bus road said, then we decide to leave and went out on the bus and hundreds of people followed and got on the bus inside on the top, hanging from the rear, sitting on the hood and Kei kept saying, we are leaving.

We are not coming back. It would behoove you all to get off. And everyone thought it was a total hoot and no one got off. And so we took off and we were heading out of town on the freeway. When a car pulled alongside with people inside wavering and hollering car honking, it was Larry McMurtry yelling, go back, go back.

This is not good. You cannot take these people away. Be kind, turn back, turn back. .

Michael: Oh shit. I totally ring out about that scene. Ah, cowboy hippie Cowboys and hippies. That's beautiful. I'm gonna call on audible on my thing. Number five. Okay. Because what I had for number five, I think he belongs in a different category.

He's kind of nerdy,

Amit: very nerdy.

Michael: I love that about him. I love that. He's a nerd. He's extremely bookish. He's a little awkward. He's got thick glasses. I like nerdy people. I always have, even before nerds got cool in high school, my favorite people were always the nerds. People who were into being smart in an unapologetic way.

And it wasn't about social Darwinism or whatever. It was just like, this is who I am. And I love that about Larry MC Beery he's nerdy.

Amit: I like. I mean, of course with you a hundred percent on that.

Michael: Okay. So let's recap. I said, let's say defining Lee Texan, number two, boomerang, Texan. I said signs and coincidences.

You said cowboy hippie. And I said, nerdy. Great. That's a good list onward. Category three Malkovich Malkovich. This category is named after the movie being John Malkovich, in which people can take a little portal into John Mavis mind and have a front row seat right behind his eyes. Point of this category is to imagine what memories or experiences might have been interesting.

Amit. So

Amit: I chose a moment in 1987 in Keville Texas, which he might have not actually even been physically present for. So in 1987, that was the Keville folk festival held every year. James McMurtry, his son, Larry son won one of six awards at the Keville folk festival. So I'm marking that as a moment that he was actually.

Officially became an acknowledged independent artist who was gonna make it as a musician. And this is what I like about it. Existential dread. I suffer from that. I'm pretty certain you do. Yes. So why are we all here? I don't really know. Maybe let's have some children and see if at least that gives us some purpose and we're perpetuating our race in our gene pool.

Yeah. There is a conflict though. I think amongst all parents that I've sent from my friends it's that you want your genes to be passed on, but you don't want them to live your life. Exactly. So at this moment, his son was gonna make. As an artist. So he knew that after he died, his legacy as a father in, as McMurry would live on through art, but through a different art form.

Yes. And that may live on for another 30 or 50 years. And there may be a James McMurray fan who is influenced by James and may influence somebody else. And that will carry on throughout life. But at that moment, Larry. Could have come to know the validation of parenting as a continuation of your own life, but also your own artistry.

Michael: So I love James McMurtry. He is among other things, a great lyricist. And he is, has a like Dylan esque quality sometimes to take, uh, cliche and sort of twist it up a little bit, especially the song, uh, that, that really leaps the mind as fast as I can. Listen to the lyrics of that song. And it's just like clever as fuck.

It's really great. She lost her mind and she never missed it.

Folks SA said, she'd never learned, she'd take the of least resistance, right? To the point of no return.

Amit: I mean, this is something I'm struggling with. , I don't know if I will have children. Right. And how do you leave a legacy? Without just putting out money or art or whatever, cuz you wanna leave a legacy through people.

You wanna leave a legacy through actually instilling your embodiment into somebody else's heart of a future

Michael: generation. Maybe as a society we over emphasize. I, I think you can love your kids and also not have kids and aspire to have impact. And value well beyond, you know, that direct relationship,

Amit: as long as you can influence somebody in the heart who lives at least a day longer than you.

And if they are influencing someone else, then you are continuing in legacy in spirit, at least. Yeah.

Michael: Good. That's been an idea in my mind, uh, with a lot of our conversations. I'm glad we talked about it. This whole lineage thing. My Malcovich moment, please. Captain obvious. I know I gotta go with it wearing blue jeans to the 2006 Oscars.

Oh, I loved that moment. I loved it at the time and I love it so much more. Now this is a rarity at the Oscars. This never happened. I mean, he wears what's called the Texas tuxedo. Right? He's gotten Armani. Suit top and jacket and tie, and then cowboy boots and blue jeans. Every time there is any occasion where I have to put on pants, I, I bulk, I hate putting on, uh, anything other than blue jeans.

It's how I've always been and whether any kind of wedding or formal event. Where Allison or my mother or my father tells me, well, you gotta wear pants to this. Like I cringe inside. I always wanna wear blue jeans, but I don't have the balls to wear 'em to the fucking Oscars. Like, I don't know if I would.

And he, and he did. And everybody remarked on it. John Stewart, who was hosting that year, made a joke about it. Like everybody like pointed at like, I can't believe that guy's wearing blue jeans. I love this moment. Love it. I don't have curiosity about it. I just wanna be in there like hill. Yeah. And, and it actually speaks to my thing.

Number one, I mean, it's a very Texan thing to do to wear cowboy boots and blue jeans to the Oscars. Yeah.

Amit: Not even McConaughey did that.

Michael: Oh, I had one more thing about the blue jeans. His second, uh, this is a preview of the next category. His second wedding. He apparently wore overalls and banged on a pot to start at the.

Okay. Yeah, kind of like, uh, the character and then some, he was like

Amit: 78 years old or

Michael: something at that time. Yeah. But overalls. Okay. Category four, love and marriage. How many marriages also, how many kids? And is there anything public about these relationships? So I'll go through this pretty quick. Two marriages.

He married a woman named Joe Scott in 1959. They divorced in 1966. Larry was about 23 when they got married. Uh, so he is about 29 or 30 when they divorced. This is the woman. Who's the mother of James McMurry already been mentioned. James is born in 1962. Larry is mostly a single father. He did give James a guitar at age seven.

James said that his mom actually taught him three chords. His mom taught him three chords. His mom taught him three chords. Oh, fabulous. Yeah. But boy, it's hard to get information on this relationship, why it failed and how it came to be that Larry. Was the single dad. Yeah. This is a

Amit: period to throw back to episode 20, about Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Remember she had the huge case advocating for single dads yes. That they were entitled to the same benefits of a single mother who was widowed. Right.

Michael: Good callback. All right. Second wife. This one's almost just funny. Norma Faye, Kei Kinsey's widow, but it didn't sound like there was a whole lot of courtship.

It sounded like kind of a whim, but he married Ken's widow, Norma Faye, Kei, who I believe is still with us in 2011. They were together until death. Yeah.

Amit: And he said, so he met Ken Kesy in 1961 at the Stanford fellows program. 60 61, I think. Yeah. And he said that he had maybe met Norma four times in between those 50 years, but Ken would never let Larry talk

Michael: to her.

Correct. I think that there's one other major thing to bring up here. And that is his overall relationship. And particularly his platonic, or maybe not platonic friendships with, um, with women in general,

Amit: his close friendships were almost exclusively with women.

Michael: Correct. Are women closer to you than men?

Sure. I don't think any men are close to me that my. And my grandson maybe be those women really well in his writing, but he's just as clueless as the next guy in real life. He was sort of mum about a lot of these relationships. Some of his close friends include Susan Sontag, uh, Diane Keaton and Sy shepherd, as well as his writing partner, Diana Osana, which I mean, in so many ways, kind of looks like a sort of marriage.

The closeness of those two, whether it's more than that has always been speculative, but there's, I read a really great article about this. There's a woman named Marine oath. Lonesome dove is dedicated to Marine oath. They were really close friends. And there's this quote in an article I read where Larry tells Marine oath.

If I thought a love affair would last six months of intense pleasure, but that this woman I had a real affinity for would not be in my life 10 years from now. I would walk away from the love affair. If there was one to be walked around, I would go for the long term friendship. Interesting. That's huge.

Amit: He values emotional intimacy in the long term as something lasting and enduring, more than physical intimacy that may part of a whim or part of an urge.

Um, what do you think about this 50 year gap in marriage?

Michael: In some ways I'm impressed by the friendships. And maybe he has many girlfriends. I mean, there is sort of murmurs that he's,

Amit: I don't even think it was a, maybe it said that he, he dated a lot. Sure. Not controversially, but he just was a single man for a long time and dated a lot.

So he has several of these women that he is very close to and that he talks about. Exactly. As you said, I prioritize long term enduring, intimate friendship, more than I would a six month love. Right. Right. And so it's, he has a bunch of these women in his life and they are meeting that sort of emotional companionship that a marriage may provide fulfill.

Yes. Right. But then on the other side, he's got these girlfriends that he is going through, and these are a series of six month or year relationships that are meeting, you know, more of a, uh, physical need, a physical need, but also just like the fun romantic side yeah. Of it. And so it's like, he's getting.

Two worlds satisfied by two very disparic groups. But I think what's still missing is there's the lack of that one deep emotional intimacy. And that's the question for the universe with that? Do you have a deeper level of fulfillment and happiness Larry, in those that period in between is challenging that model and saying that, uh, yes.

I have my emotional intimacy on one side and I have my romantic intimacy on another. I

Michael: gotta say something that that's on my mind about all this, which is. I wish I knew a little bit more about the relationship between James and his mother. Yeah, I mean, but the

same

Amit: question came up in the last episode with Jaja.

Michael: indeed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't think of it the same way, but I totally agree. I totally agree. I, I look, I think that life is so confusing and childhood and adolescence is so confusing that by the time you get to be an adult, you wanna like run, you know, it's good to have siblings that run some of this shit by what was your take on what was happening?

It's just the two of you. There's something, you know, if it's a father and a son it's sort of beautiful. I don't mean to, I don't wanna sound like I'm like, um, Knocking single parenthood. Correct? Right. But I, but I do think that, uh, you know, I, if it's healthy for everybody involved, all the other things being equal, um, I think it's good to have multiple adults at least and equally invested adults involved in child rearing.

Yeah.

Amit: Yeah. It's too bad. We got communes wrong. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Like commun, communal living of the old like pioneer times and before, or what happens in other countries, um, specifically in more like indigenous cultures, maybe they're more, right.

Michael: I think Ken Kei can be blamed a little bit. The LSD of the 1970s might have fucked up the commune idea.

Category five. Yes. Category five net worth. Now we're doing this differently. We're doing this a little differently. This time I went out of my way to not look up the number so that omit could surprise me with it and I could react to it.

Amit: Yeah. So I found a different numbers. I found a range, but I found one number that I saw most consistently.

Michael: I am on the edge of my seat. I want you to guess first I'm gonna go. I heard him talk about making and losing money a lot. And I don't think he had a particularly lucrative life. However, he was so prolific and he was selling screenplays a lot. He went back to Hollywood again and again, and he had, you know, a career that he's grateful for there.

I I'm gonna guess 15 million.

Amit: 2 million is the most consistent number I ever. Holy shit. Yes.

Michael: 2 million. Mm-hmm

Amit: the four block bookstore in Archer city. I don't think was a big profitable operation. Yeah. I think there was a lot of money sunk into passion. Yeah. 2 million, 2 million at the end.

Michael: Can I say something about that number?

Yeah. Really like that number for him, for him. And for me, what I know, I go to 10, been talking about 10. I know, but I've been, but that's, that's, that's, that's a working number. Wow. That's so much less than I would've thought, I guess that tracks, I mean, it tracks, it makes sense. As soon as you say it, let me say this.

I love that number for him and I would also be good with that number. It is good. Yeah. Uh, what do you wanna say about. I think he had a

Amit: lot more, if we look at total lifetime earnings, which is the, the really not the number we want, but it's, it's really hard to get. Right. I think he spent it well. Yes. I think he spent it on passion.

I think he spent it on, uh, all of the development of Archer city and the bookstores in the antique book collections. I mean, we haven't really

Michael: talked about that at this point. I mean, we should be clear that he was a, an, an emphatic obsessive book collect. Do you think he likes collecting books more than writing?

Yes. Oh yeah. Yes. Writing is his vocation and book collecting is his vocation. I mean, and you wrote, you collected. 400,000 books. It was more

Amit: like 600,600,

Michael: but it, after the big sale, we, everybody thinks you all the books are gone in Archer city. You still have how many left? I still have 200,000. I mean, even in his Oscar speech, when he wins for broke back mountain, um, he makes a note to say, and finally, I'm gonna thank all the book sellers of the world.

Remember the Brokeback mountain was a book before it was a movie. so the other thing I

Amit: was gonna say about his spending towards passion, another story that I found is that I think skip Hollandsworth yes, the

Michael: Texas monthly author, yes.

Amit: Said this in an article about, uh, in a remembrance of Larry. And they said one of the things that he really liked or admired about Larry was his.

Road trips. Yeah. So Larry would rent a Lincoln and just go driving across the country. Uh, I'm gonna just assume out west until he got tired and then he would just pay the exorbitant dropoff fee to like, leave it in Boise and fly back to Tucson whatever. But he wouldn't actually set a plan. He would just go and drive to Lincoln and then be like, I'm done.

And they're like, that's gonna be a $3,000 drop off fee. And he's like, great. And then.

Michael: so maybe not as particularly good with money, certainly not driven by money. Wow. $2 million though. That's so much less than I would've thought mm-hmm should we move on? Yes. Category six Simpsons, Saturday night live or halls of fame.

This category is of measure of how famous a person is. We include both guest appearances on SNL or the Simpsons as well as impersonations. There is almost nothing on the Simpsons, never appeared in any way, shape or form on Saturday night live. There is nothing. There is also no Hollywood walk of fame.

Really? Yes. And I was disappointed about this. I went and finally got a little bit more information on how does one get a Hollywood walk of fame. And there, I think that there is a nomination process that's posthumous, uh, but they have to have been dead at least five years. So I think it's possible making, oh, so it could be coming for broke grand.

It could, or it could be coming from him overall, but there's not a lot of screenwriters that get a Hollywood. However, there is a, an academy award, a Pulitzer prize, and an also a national humanities medal. And that's a very prestigious, very short list. There's a photograph out there. Larry, McMurtrie getting awarded the medal with Barack Obama.

I mean, this is a go to the white house and get the medal. That's pretty big. It's pretty big. I think I would also say this tracks with. How famous he actually is he,

Amit: yeah. There is a huge number of academy awards associated with the movies that he either wrote or that were adapting to his films. Yeah. So for them one academy awards, but there were

Michael: multiple awards under them and multiple nominations.

Yeah. I mean the four and which is a pretty incredible spectrum. HUD last picture show terms of endear. And broke back mountain. That's a really stellar list when you put 'em all together and look at 'em in sort of their different stories. Yeah. Jeff Bridges, a big

Amit: break

Michael: was last picture show. That's right.

Same thing with civil shepherd. All right. Category seven. Yep. Category seven. Over, under, in this category, we look at the life expectancy for the year of person was born to see if they beat the house odds. And as a measure of grace, Larry MC Marrie was born in 1936, a male born in 1936 had a life expectancy of 56.6 years.

Larry died age 84, crushed it in terms of grace. So I think we should just move on to grace if that's okay. Yes, there was a major change in his quality of life after his heart surgery in 1991. I don't know how many of you have under undergone four bypasses and tried to return to normal life. You can't because you're not the person you was, you may be the physical person, but you're not the emotional person because I was emotionally crippled by a, a Savage operation.

The subject, what happened really after the surgery was Larry stopped writing. He stopped reading. He stopped doing anything except sitting on the couch and looking out the window. It was almost like he disappeared. You have to form from fragments of the former personality fragment here, fragment there, fragment there enough fragments of yourself to be able to function.

this was a, a work of two or three, four years before I really got my feet under myself. It's just a hard thing to get over and I don't, I'm not, I don't think I've quite got over it yet. that's basically all I have to say on grace

Amit: there. What do you think about the final years? Let's just say, so he died in 2021.

Yeah. Um, what we saw of him the last 10, 15 years, right? I mean, his academy awards were broke back. Mountain came 15 years before his death. Right. That's not so bad for being, uh, what near 70 years old. I think it's a full life. It is a full life, but I think I, I kind of like the, uh, the conclusion. Yeah. The way it looked.

I mean, he's still giving talks. He's giving, he's starting to giving more interviews actually in the later part of his life. Yeah. He's still writing. It did not seem like a demise. And he goes out and woos a wife at age, what? 74?

Michael: Yeah. Of his former rival. I like it for him. I think the question that we're building up to the VanDerBeek of how much I want to be, what he was all about is still an open question, mark.

But in terms of what he's all about, I like the graceful aging. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. I'll sign off on that. Let's pause for a word from our sponsor.

Amit: Michael. I've got a question for you. Yeah. Uh, if you could take today's dead celebrity to any retail store, what would it be?

Michael: Ooh, I think I would take 'em to half price books on it. Half price books. Right. Absolutely. Explain yourself. Sorry. Well, I, I love shopping for books with people. Shopping for books is always stimulates interesting conversation, right?

You browse the different aisles and you see, you know, different topics come to mind. Have you ever read this author? Have you ever read that book? It's just a good place to talk and wander and discover. So yeah, absolutely half price books is an awesome venue to connect with people, to discover. Books that you've long forgotten about or that you haven't read.

And it's all a great price. And

Amit: you know what? Half price books is celebrating 50 years of buying and selling books, movies, and music. There are over 120 stores and you can find out more@hpv.com.

Michael: Okay, this is the part of the show where we get to the more introspective questions we wanna take our best guess at what we think it might have been like to have been this person. The first of the introspective categories is man in the mirror. What did this person think about? Their own reflection? AHT.

Negative. Wow. You were quick with that.

Amit: Yeah. And I'll tell you where this comes from. All right. Do

Michael: you remember what we did last night? Uh, went out for drinks.

Amit: We had went out for drinks and we went out for drinks with a couple of our friends who were therapists. Correct. There was discussions about attachment.

And I started thinking about all these, uh, relationships that Larry McMurry has with women, these deep, emotionally intimate friendships. Yeah. I think there's a validation issue in there somewhere. I think he is not sure that he is wanted and perhaps this is an early attachment issue or whatever, but perhaps all of these deep female friendships is dealing with some sort of attachment issue and I'm correlating attachment issues.

And to not being okay with how you look in the mirror, because you need outside validation. You can't look in the mirror, give a thumbs up and say, okay, you need somebody else to validate your existence.

Michael: I wrote, he's the certainly sort who I don't think cared, but I don't think he liked his reflection.

You have put words to something that was very much in my. I wholeheartedly agree. I think we don't know, but I think you're onto something.

Yeah.

Amit: I think, I think that certainly is a cover.

Michael: Great take. Outgoing message. Yes. Next category, outgoing message. You lead with this one, like man, in the mirror, how do we think they felt about the sound of their own voice when they heard it on an answering machine or outgoing voicemail?

Would they even have used it and recorded it on a cell phone? I. I'm going no, and it has to do with the way he talks. He mumbles a lot and his teeth don't move much. He almost seems to be whenever he talks sort of reluctantly talking. And this is a man who cares way more about written word than he does about the spoken word, even though he's great at dialogue, I think that.

He could give a fuck about speaking and I don't think he wants to do it. I

Amit: agree. I'm not taking the sound side. I'm taking the, would he actually do it as far as devoting the time and exposing his own voice out there? Yeah, I don't think so. I think he's like this isn't a good use of my time. There's a machine that does that.

And if people are calling me, they already know what I sound like.

Michael: Yeah. Okay. Next category, regrets, public or private. What we really want to know is what, if anything kept this person awake at night? I don't see the regrets with this guy.

Amit: I had to rack my brain, but I did find one that I feel pretty strongly about.

And it's both a public and private one. Interesting. He obviously was involved in movies, both his books being adapted to movies and then writing and adapting screenplay himself. Right. So in one of the interviews I watched, he said that he can't watch movies for pleasure anymore.

Michael: I was a passionate, passionate movie goer until I began to write screenplays professionally, it's professionalizing a passion.

It takes the passion out of it. It's not a job for me to watch

Amit: a movie and I gotta wonder that sucks. Yeah, it does. I would regret that. I would hate to like, Some turn in my life, takes me into movies and then I can't enjoy them anymore. Yeah. Movies are hugely important and I would hate the idea of doing what you love, ruining the love of the consumption.

Yeah.

Michael: It's a good regret. Otherwise, this does not look like a regretful man.

Amit: Yeah, I don't think so. I don't see a ton of built up regrets. Certainly

Michael: not the deathbed type. Yeah. However, our next category is good dreams, bad dreams, and this is not a bad personal perception, but rather, does this person have a haunted look in the eye that suggests urge turmoil, inter demons, unresolved trauma.

Amit: I'm gonna go bad dreams. Uh, the surliness that we talked about, the curmudgeons it's born from something though. I think the guy loved the magic of the written word and the book. Those are very solitary things. That's a heads down. Type of enjoyment. And that's going into fantasy in your head, the enjoyment of the daily life, which is really circulating into the brain and the neurons that make up the composition of dreams.

I just didn't have enough sense that that was flowing happily enough. When he was teaching at rice, there was a description I came across that said he didn't encourage his students much. In fact, he discouraged them. What he did was show them the possibility of let's say becoming an author, but he wasn't a cheerleader.

He wasn't an optimist yeah. To other people. And to me, I'm just translating that into the way that he could appreciate every step and every breath. And I think

Michael: that could have been bad. I also went bad. Maybe a slightly different reason. His childhood sounds really lonely. You know, there are big open skies in that part of Texas.

And I do think that the way time is just always slipping. But there's a sadness to me about the transient of time, that, and the way he seems to be very smart and aware of its inevitability, but also the grief that surrounds things always slipping into the past. On a more simple level. I just see a haunted look in the eye.

I can't quite put my finger on it, but if I look into that guy's eyes. There's something unresolved there. What we talked about in recent episodes, and I think it's becoming a real central theme of our show is creative catharsis is the term I've been using, but you know, sort of peace arrived through artistry.

I think there's almost compulsion with him, anybody who he's got the discipline to get up and bang out 10 to 15 pages of words, five to five to 10, I believe five to 10. Actually. I did see 15 at some points in his life, but yeah. Five to 10 pages a day. Those were the benzo

Amit: years,

Michael: right. yeah. Right. Um, There's something almost compulsive about that, you know, like if I don't do this, I won't be okay.

Yes. You know what I mean? It's like a fervency. Yeah. Which I think does make for great writing. And he was critical of Kee for like basically doing two great books and then walking away. I don't know. I see something there.

Amit: We don't see a lot of sunshine in the sky.

Michael: I think that's well put, all right.

Second to last category, cocktail, coffee or cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity? This may be a question of what kind of drug sounds like the most fun to partake with this person, or maybe it's access to 'em something that we're most curious about.

Cocktail.

Amit: I see a great wall in this man in the interviews. I don't think that's probably true of these close relationships that he has with primarily women. Yeah. But I think if I'm getting a session with him, I have to break down that wall. And what I want it to be about is storytelling. Cause I think this guy has seen some incredible stuff between the movie.

He's contributed to the ways that his life has crossed other paths. He's obviously a gifted storyteller because he's a writer, but I want to hear his stories about the little bitty moments in his life, which are actually pretty historical. And I don't think he can do it with emotion or attitude without breaking down some of the inhibition.

I agree with that. And so we need a couple of tall pints of whiskey. With some lone star backs,

Michael: whiskey backs by lone star. Yeah. It's typically the other way. Yeah. But yeah, that's what I'm going with in his memoirs. I mean, he does share a fair amount, but he also draws walls there too. He doesn't tell you everything.

This man is not transparent. I also went whiskey. Hmm. I kind of went an old fashioned with Larry McMurry for most of the same reasons, the storytelling in particular, but there's also a part of me and this is gonna sound kinda weird, but that I

Amit: almost want to like him

Michael: more. I love his books. I love the movies that he's been involved with.

I think they're some of my favorite movies and I. Love the culture and quality that surrounds him. I love this sort of literary life aura. But I don't know how much I like him. I don't know how much I actually want to hang out with him. He is certainly he is a little bit distant. However, there are some friends I have who are not as easily broken down.

Into kind of a relatable level until you get 'em a little drunk mm-hmm until they have some whiskey. And some of my great friends actually like the bonding happened when we were hammered, you know, and those walls come down a little bit. So I'm with you. I want to get drunk with this guy and see those walls come down a little bit, cuz I almost feel like I see like the height of those walls and how to overcome.

If there's one drug that I think would help facilitate that, it'd be, it'd be whiskey.

Amit: Got it. And he may give it back. He may give the, I love man back. He might enough of those. He

Michael: might, but I, it would also sort sort of for me answer the question too. Like if he couldn't give it back, I would have a, I feel like a better overall.

Take on him. Yeah. And I kind of want that answer. So there's even curiosity here too. Yeah.

Amit: Then you're validated. And then you have to just call up the, the ghost of Kei and be like, what was it like when he took LSD

Michael: yeah, yeah, no shit. Tell me about the Houston trips. Our final category named after James VanDerBeek, who famously said and varsity blues.

I don't want your life. This is the Vander beak based on everything we've talked about, the question is, do you want this life?

Amit: I wanna say something first. Okay. I wanna make an argument that Larry McMurtry is James VanDerBeek in varsity blues.

Michael: all right, let me,

Amit: so he was an athlete in Archer city. I think.

I know, certainly he ran track, but maybe he played football. Yeah, too. But he was a bookish athlete. Yeah. So they would talk about like taking the bus to Fort worth, to go for a game. Um, and Larry would like slip away and find a bookstore yes. In Fort worth. Yes. And the image I have from varsity blues and James VanDerBeek is him like sitting on the sideline reading VK.

I could not help the parallel when I heard that story about him going to the game in Fort worth and running away to a bookstore. Yeah.

Michael: that is very that's Vander. Bakish. Well, do you have a lean cuz I gotta say leading into this, I'm actually like all the stuff we talked about in the first half of this conversation had me going for a pretty hard.

Yes. And all the stuff we talked about in the second half of this conversation had me going for a pretty hard. No, yeah.

Amit: I'll come out and say it. No, I don't want his life. Uh, what you just said about, you're not sure if you like him, I'm not sure about. Either the man made books and played parts in movies that literally might be remembered for 50 to a hundred plus years.

But I didn't get the vitality of life from him. An example is he would never laugh out loud. I don't know about never, but this is another thing I got from the skip Hollandsworth article is that he would hang out with Larry McMurtry and Larry McMurry would talk about Dr. Pepper and Frito pie, but he could never get the man to laugh out loud and.

I suffer from that too. I don't know what happened sometime around like 15 to 20 years ago is I kind of somehow lost the ability to really let go and laugh out loud frequently. I can still do it, but the frequency went away and that is one of the things that I aimed. To fix, but I see that in MC Marre. I hear that fact, and I hear the way that he does interviews.

And I hear you say that you love the man's work and you love the man's legacy, but you're not sure you like him. And I would rather be liked than have people love my work.

Michael: Wow. I'm a, so I'm a, no, I think I'm a lean no, too, for a lot of the same reasons. There's something lonely about him. And I, I relate to him in some really, to me, surprising ways, this sort of Texas nostalgia, vanishing landscapes, vanishing characters thing. I have a preoccupation with that. I also think, you know, to see your son grow up and find his own artistry and success in that artistry and, and to be proud of it and to like it.

Amit: That's really fucking good. That's

Michael: some good full thought. And you can see the closeness of those guys, you know, or at least I, I perceive, I perceive and with, with the grandson as well. Correct. But I think I'm with you in that. I don't think I want this. If one of the kind of catchall ideas that I think we're after with famous and gravy is.

Relational wealth. There are a couple of like major holes here and maybe it is really in the marriage category, which at times I emphasize, and at times I don't in this show, but I don't, I don't want one marriage for seven years. And then I marry a friend's widow. that, that almost looks like it's kind of, I don't know.

Competitive, weird. It's a little weird. Yeah. And I don't know how much I need to be definitively Texan. I think that there are parts of me that I like that about myself, that I'm born and raised here and that I understand it and kind of get it words and all I'm not saying it was something he was proud of, but I'm not sure it's something that I want either.

I'm gonna go. No too. It's not a strong no, though. Um, it's more than redeemable. There are some. Absolutely desirable things about this life, but on balance, I think I'm a

Amit: no, yeah. I'm I'm with you. I'm not a very strong, no, the lives he touched how much his books and art meant to so many people

Michael: yeah. Is incredible.

When I was fresh out of high school, I did a gap year and I, uh, did something called a Noles course in, uh, Patagonia. I was in the wilderness for three months, with 15 other young men. Everybody brought like one or two books. And so everybody was handing. The same set of books around lonesome dove was one of those books and everybody was like, oh, oh finally, I get a chance to read it.

But I remember reading lonesome dove, and, and it is on the short list of my favorite books of all time. And I'd love to be able to claim that I contributed something like that to the culture and art of history. but I'm still a no on the Vander big. Yeah. I mean,

Amit: I think what we're saying is that you've got, would I trade an incredible legacy for more joviality?

And my answer is yes, I would

do

Michael: that. That's a good summation. All right. Then we are at the end of our show,

Amit: the pitch to St. Peter. So Michael, you are Larry McMurtry. You have just died. You stand before St. Peter, who is the Unitarian fill in for all after lives of all beliefs, make your case.

Michael: Peter Larry.

So I'm from north Texas, and I grew. Just a few decades after the frontier was sort of settled. I think that period in history is really misunderstood, but I actually think most of history is misunderstood. They were humans being human is primarily an emotional experience, whatever else surrounds that.

And it's full of pain and sorrow and joy, and it's built on relationships. I wasn't perfect in all of my relationships. But I was a close friend. I was a dedicated father. And through my art, I tried to shine as much light as I possibly could on what makes us human. However, the world is changing constantly all around us.

I. I think that was a gift, both to the people who knew me to the state of Texas and to the people who I never met for that. Please let me in.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of famous and gravy. If you are enjoying our. We have a favor to ask. We hear from a lot of people that this show cheers, 'em up. It puts 'em in a good mood. So think of somebody in your life, just one person who you'd like to cheer up and share an episode of our show with them, be like, Hey man, here's an episode of famous and gravy.

Share it with anybody who you think could stand to be put in a good mood. We are on Twitter. Our Twitter handle is at famous and GRA. We also have a newsletter, which you can sign up for on our website, famous and gravy.com famous and gravy was created by Amit Kapoor and me Michael Osborne. This episode was produced by Jacob Weiss, original theme music by Kevin Strang.

And thanks so much to our sponsor, half Bryce books. Thank you again for listening. Please share this episode and we hope to see you next time.